Portuguese got an impressive indirect Champion buff with their fast researching. Now with squires they’d be a proper decent champion civ.
Also there’s been a bunch of changes recently, including quite a number of other changes to Portuguese, which make them almost a good civ.
As a result I’m not too pessimistic about Portuguese Squires myself.
I think the lack of Squires is the big problem here. If you look at most stats, pretty much all the worst matchups that Ports have is against Cav civs like Berbers, Franks and Magyars.
Cysion basically said once they don’t want organ guns being protected too easily against cavalry.
Absolutely, however it’s not exactly a buff but a a redesign.
Once you force Portuguese into a reactive playstyle, in other words, once you force them into trash units, you won the game, they become the most generic bonus-less civ. Which is very common since this civ lacks any early-game bonus, this civ can be played only from a point of advantage. Horrible Design.
With that being said, Organ gun is such a great unit, both strong and solid yet counterable. Sadly the current meta doesnt allow Unique Unit strats for the most part (unless its a chaotic post imp wars), so we even lose this aspect of Portuguese.
Portuguese don’t need “early game bonus” nor squires like many have suggested here, it’s way too shallow of an approach to fix this civ. This civ has an identity crisis, it’s beyond just buffs. Besides the repetitive request for Squires is sad, a big killer to diversity.
** * All technologies (excluding advancing ages) are researched 30% faster.**
This pathetic bonus should be removed from the game, too minor to have any impact, and doesnt contribute to the formation of an identity.
They used to be masters of exploration, how about giving them:
Outposts cost no Stone
Something to actually play around, playability, something that will enrich player’s experience, cause right now the civ is the most generic one among all 39.
Another bonus can be one that will increase the viability of their awesome Unique Unit, a bonus that will help the Portuguese player, similiarly to Spanish style, building his first Castle, this however will ruin Arena games potentially.
Perhaps a bonus that will give them tiny bit of Stone for every building they destroy. This will make a 4 M@A into a Tower Rush very diverse and refreshing way to play this civ.
One thing for sure, this civ deserves more than a little tweak, its a matter of diversity and playability.
Literally all the bottom tier civs except Burmese lose to cav civs.
Man, at this point I would be happy with a simple “Start with 50 extra wood” as a buff, but we’re not even getting that.
Yessssssss Steal the Persian starting resource bonus and then give Persians back their fast Dark Age TCs 
For reals though, I’d prefer giving Ports squires, and perhaps increasing their research speed bonus.
Porteguese need paladin.
60 F 60 G FU Paladin.
Brillant Idea. Next thing is trash FU arbalest?
15 gold dif is not so much in imperial age. Without husbandry and bloodline portegues will have cheap but trash paladins and it will give a little mobility to portegues
30% to 50% will be a noticeable difference as loom + wheelbarrow will give them 1.5 villagers lead instead of 0.9. But this will buff their water game as well which is not intended. Maybe extra HP will also be replaced with something else then? Reducing the bonus to 20% but affecting age advancing can also be an option.
Why nerfing their feudal and castle where they are already pretty weak.
Yes, just remove their 10% ship hp bonus if they get too strong on water. They already have the UT. A ship hp bonus would make a lot more sense on another civ.
This is a kinda-sorta funny conversation.
I was going to reply to @casusincorrabil that he actually raised in interesting question: We know trash xbows are balanced, and Mayan’s 17 wood 32 gold FU arbalest is balanced (ok, maybe it isn’t 
), so how much or how little would you have to wreck a tech tree to make 60 gold Paladin balanced?
I think no husbandry + no bloodlines would certainly do the trick, but that’d be a nerf to Portuguese in my estimation. The thing I enjoy about Portuguese is precisely that you can go either FU knights or FU arbs. Removing forging would wreck their champs, which would make me sad too.
For the record: I think balanced 60 gold paladin is possible, but I don’t wish to see it on Ports. Maybe for a new civ 
They miss 1 range and 2 attack to arbs which means they deal so much less damage to almost aything. Like only 2 damage against light cav with full armor upgrades.
That’s what makes them balanced, they are only strong against a very limited amount of units:
Vllagers, Monks, spear line.
But trash FU arbs would be totally OP. (and 60f/60g paladins would be very close to that)
That is a good point. Keep husbandry and bloodline, remove last armor and attack upgrade (?). On the other hand with paladin or without paladin: Portoguese need early age buff.
Idk, I’d sooner give them Hussar than Paladin, considering their gold discount (just like Berbers can’t have Paladin). Tbh Portuguese are pretty good in late Imperial, they do get outclassed by heavy cavalry, but I blame that more on their slow infantry without squires.
It’s Dark Age through early Castle Age where Portuguese have a hard time. The easy answer would be an eco bonus, but I’m not sure what would be appropriate historically, and keep them unique.
Maybe even a free tech, but so many are already taken by other civs. Free crossbow upgrade may be an option, but it wouldn’t help them survive Feudal Age or if they are going Knights.
Edit: Maybe free Bloodlines? I don’t believe any other civ has that and it would help them starting in early Feudal. Could also combine this with free crossbow so the Port player has a bonus for whichever gold power unit they choose to make, but I’m not sure if this combination would create an overpowered Scouts into Crossbows transition. It could be too much for Light Cav in Arena relic wars too.
Why are people discussing late-game buffs for Portuguese when they don’t need those?
they arent that geat in lategame either. great in 1v1, at best average in teamgame. they dont have a single pop efficient main line unit as they got no combat bonuses that are crucial for lategame or atleat the strong units like cav archers, paladin, siege oanger or rams. all the got is snippz bbc and that it just not enough when your rest of army just loses in direct battles all the time.
Ports still are a civ with very litte civ bonuses compared to others.
lets see:
THeir bonueses are weak all game, and so is the civ.
compare that to seomething like teutons
And this is in my opinion the culprint.
Ports are too one sided water civ.
We either need to replace the UT by a UT for land units
Or we replace/weaken the free HP so we can add a land bonus instead/additionally
Here are my suggestions:
THeir new playstzle is drushing into 2 free man at arms, and continuing. in castle you get the UT for your longsword and another few free units. this should incentivise them to go for infatrz all game, benefiting from the gold discount. never will tis be op. but maybe finally interesting to play
I’m not saying that Portuguese are the best late game civ, but what they get is more than adequate. Other civs end up with mostly vanilla stuff in the late game (like Malay and Chinese) without being seen as bad late game. So the problem is mostly about the early game.
I also don’t think they are “too shifted towards water”. They have one naval bonus and one naval UT just like the Byzantine which themselves aren’t a bad civ. And let’s be real most of their naval strenght comes from the looming threat of feitoria stalling, as a few more HP and a bit of gold saved isn’t good for early game water. Vikings and Italians outperform that easily, even some niche civs for full water like Mongols and Lithuanians outdo that easily. Caravels are cool and I like them but if the enemy shows up with more galleons in spread formation or a bunch of fast fires they are going to be very sad.
Portuguese Paladin really make sense? I don’t know their cavalry/ knight excel historically, and they aren’t designed to cavalry civ.
I don’t say everything in the game based on the history. But at least it should be make sense in some regard.
If cavalry civs are too strong and gunpowder civs are too weak are that much problem, nerf knight-line and make gunpowder more accessible in open map (They are already great in closed map). Not trying to giving good cavalry to all civs.
Portuguese are fine in late game but struggle in early game. No need to give them hussar or paladin. I am more fond of outpost bonus. If completely stone-free is too op, returning the stone cost upon destruction of outpost is good enough.